Rusty Schweickart’s Skylab Exercise Bike Shoes

(edit: see comment below for how these cleats were for much more than the exercise bike)

Today is the 50-Year Anniversary of the successful completion of Apollo 9, the first flight of the Lunar Module. We hosted LM Pilot Rusty Schweickart and B612 for a dinner, and tonight, the 50th Anniversary Celebration with the entire Apollo 9 crew in San Diego. Apollo 8 and 9 is the only mission with all three crew members still with us on this pale blue dot.

Rusty shared a mesmerizing story of his EVA and a 5 minute unexpected delay where he got to hang outside the lunar module (awaiting a camera to be fixed) with an unlikely moment to contemplate the purpose of life in the silence of space. It brought to life a picture we have that hung behind Randy at dinner, of his spacecraft in earth orbit (below).

And the shoes were his personal pair used in training as backup crew for Skylab. I also happen to have the full exercise bike that they clip into, a marvel of custom engineering, with switches and dials that look like it was borrowed form the Lunar Module (below)